A true fan :) I like perter's interpretation, but the books are wonderful on their own! I remember in primary school we had this really cool teacher who loved the Hobbit. He'd read it to us in class chapter by chapter in the last half hour before home time. He also loved art, and is a big reason why I got into art.

Yeah, saw it yesterday. About 45 ;minutes into it I realized that Bilbo still hadn't gotten out of his home. I said to myself "Self, they aren't going to have much time to have an adventure before the movie's over. Bummer!" Then at about the 2 and a half hour mark I realized that I'd heard that it had been split into a trilogy. So they had lots of time to have an adventure.

A lot more animation in this one than in LOTR.

The extras added by Peter Jackson are actually helpful and tie the timelines of the two stories together for the non-Tolkien-geeks. It's been a long time since I read "The Hobbit" but all the essentials are in the movie. There may have been places where Jackson embellished a bit but it was still a fun movie and it's only 1/3 over.

Unfortunately I bought a ticket to the wrong theater and saw it in 2D instead of 3D. Gotta go back today or tomorrow to see it in 3D (24 frame/sec). But I'd have to go about 120 miles to see in 3D (48 frames/sec) as it was meant to be seen.

That is one reason I never go to see films made from books that I love. They always change them. I have worn out 2 copies of LOTR, have yet to see the films.

As someone who's both read the books and seen the movies, I adore the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They certainly do change a few things, but it's still pretty faithful and well worth adding to your collection.

...unlike the "Golden Compass". I was soo hyped for that movie (based on the Northern Lights book) but alas it fell flat largely due to budget restraints, getting one of the main characters hair the wrong colour and outright nuking large chunks of the plot. Pretty sad really considering it was Dakota Blue Richards' debut and her performance is easily the only good thing about the entire film.

But I digress. Not seen the Hobbit yet, but I certainly plan to when I'm not tied up.

9 for the Silmarillion? it would be more like 39... did you ever see that book.

I was jazzed to hear they were making The Hobbit, bummed to hear it will be 3 parts... I hate waiting 2 years between episodes... I have a terrible memory, it always loses impact... like when someone is telling you a story or filling you in on something important and then they go off to use the restroom, get a snack... answer the phone and two hours later they come back to finish the story and I can barely remember who they are, let alone who said what to who or why the giant panda was on a unicycle...
3 parts for the Hobbit, I hear, because jackson is adding stuff not really in the book, but mentioned or alluded to in the LOTR...
But it will clear up nagging issues like where Gollum got that nasty rash and why Aragon parts his hair as such...

I saw it last night and really enjoyed it. Mind you I like to see a film several times to get all the details. I found the 48 FPS to be great. I cannot remember how my eyes were after watching Avatar in 3D when it came out but other 3D films tend to bother my eyes so the higher FPS really helps. Either that or its just because it was filmed in 3D instead of being converted.

Yes the Hobbit will be 3 films. It was suppose to be 2 but from what I found out, someone had 180+ pages of extra info written down by Tolkien that fills in a lot of gaps between The Hobbit and LotR. So they gave Peter Jackson access to the notes and hence we have a 3rd movie.

9 for the Silmarillion? it would be more like 39... did you ever see that book.

I was jazzed to hear they were making The Hobbit, bummed to hear it will be 3 parts... I hate waiting 2 years between episodes... I have a terrible memory, it always loses impact... like when someone is telling you a story or filling you in on something important and then they go off to use the restroom, get a snack... answer the phone and two hours later they come back to finish the story and I can barely remember who they are, let alone who said what to who or why the giant panda was on a unicycle...
3 parts for the Hobbit, I hear, because jackson is adding stuff not really in the book, but mentioned or alluded to in the LOTR...
But it will clear up nagging issues like where Gollum got that nasty rash and why Aragon parts his hair as such...

It is going to be stuff from the Appendices in LOTR, that 'happens' around the same time as the story. If you look at the timeline, in the LOTR series you'll notice some of things in this movie, right off.

As for being a 'children's book'...never was, except in the mind of a publisher who never had a 'high fantasy' story before...just didn't know how to classify it, so it ended up 'children's story'.

Now, for those who've seen it...anyone else get a little 'render envy'? How about drooling over some of the shaders? I want the SSS shader used on Gollum...anyone know which was the main renderer used?

Now, for those who've seen it...anyone else get a little 'render envy'? How about drooling over some of the shaders? I want the SSS shader used on Gollum...anyone know which was the main renderer used?

Looking here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effects_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_series - at the bottom it lists a program called "Grunt" which is designed for large scene rendering. I would not doubt that they used all the same techniques for The Hobbit as they did for LotR but just updated. If you watch the behind the scenes on "The Fellowship of the Ring" (which is 6 hours) you will see a lot of what they did. They blended film, cg and minatures extremely well so that its almost impossible to tell. A few shots were obvious composites but what else can you do when showing a Hobbit, Dwarfs and a full size human.

As for being a 'children's book'...never was, except in the mind of a publisher who never had a 'high fantasy' story before...just didn't know how to classify it, so it ended up 'children's story'.

And in the mind of the writer of the book (and a few million others), it was not untill the publisher tempted him to write a sequel, that he made the adult lotr as part of his life work (Silmarilion etc).

(That being said, as an adult I prefur most kid books ovr adult ones, so whatever,,,,)

Saw "The Hobbit" again today in 3D (24 fps). I saw it yesterday in 2D by mistake. However, it worked out well because today I knew the plot and scenes and was able to concentrate on the images and technology. Wonderful! The 3D really worked. Some of the mob & fight scenes in the caverns were too muddled in 2D but in 3D they really worked.

Then I came home and caught the tail end of "Toy Story". Wow, what a difference between 1995 and 2012 animation capabilities.

For any die-hard fans of the LOTR books (like me), I thoroughly recommend the 12-disc box set. I picked it up fairly cheap at Amazon ($18, I think), and was mightily entertained by it. The extra features are really engrossing, (especally if you're into Poser/DS 3d and the tech stuff). I still prefer the books, and disagree with some of the changes PJ made, but I can see why he did what he did.

I had already seen the 3 movies and wasn't at all impressed, but watching them back to back, then seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff does put them in a different light. But I hope PJ never tackles The Sillmarrillion. That's my favorite.

I'm waiting till all 3 Hobbit movies are out, then I'm going to sell my copy of the book (9th impression, 1957, complete with illustrations by Tolkein), which I bought when I was about 18. Hee hee!

9 for the Silmarillion? it would be more like 39... did you ever see that book.

Depends on just what you call the Silmarillion. The average-sized book that came out 35 years ago is more or less a Reader's Digest condensation of thousands of years of history. Some parts exist in a more complete form, but I think only one — The Children of Húrin — has so far been published pretty much as Tolkien originally concieved the story. That one book was only a short chapter in the Silmarillion.

Remember that what Tolkien meant to create was a complete mythology for England to match the Finnish Kalevala or the Norse Sagas. It's impossible to put all of that into a single film, or a sequence of films. Some parts of the story might be suitable, but the whole thing would be an impossible task.

*hugs my 1st edition hard back copy of Silmarillion* :) I got it from my great grandma when I was little. Dad had the 1st editions of the LotR trilogy, but we don't have a 1st edition copy of Hobbit :(

A movie would be fun for Silmarillion, but I really don't see how they could pull it off without ruining it. It's better left as is I think.

I was always disappointed how Return of the King ended. Jackson should have kept to the book :( It would have boosted the length of the movie having the extra action scenes but it would have been worth it.

It was so good I forgave Peter Jackson for the train wreck that was Return of the King. ;) I have been a harsh critic of PJ's interpretation of LotR, but overall I've respected him as a filmmaker and I enjoyed The Hobbit incredibly. :)